English pushing native languages towards extinction? (fwd link)

[James Crippen]

On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 8:22 AM, phil cash cash
<cashcash at email.arizona.edu> wrote:
>  India now has the status of highest English speaking population in the world.

Just to make things clear, if you check the census records that the
Indian government publishes, the vast majority of the English speaking
population in India is made up of second language learners. There is
only a small percentage of the country that claims English as a
"mother tongue" or first language in any sense. Also, in discussing
this with a colleage who is studying bilingualism in India, I am told
that many who claim fluency in English would be incomprehensible to
speakers from outside the country.

Cheers,
James Crippen